sunrise – Page 32 – The Morning Porch

January 11, 2010

Dave Bonta January 11, 2010 1

Finishing my coffee, I walk to the edge of the porch and stop short: the western horizon is a dark battleship gray, an anti-sunrise.

Dave Bonta December 17, 2009 2

As if the slow December daybreak weren’t sufficient reward for sloth, today’s band of clouds in the east extend the sunrise almost to 9:00.

Dave Bonta December 11, 2009

Trees pop in the cold, creak in the wind. Sunrise spreads across the sky like a grease stain. All the foxtail millet is bowed to the north.

Dave Bonta August 14, 2009

Thin fog. Now that the phoebes have left, their shy cousins the pewees have come out of the woods, and herald each sunrise in a slow drawl.

Dave Bonta July 25, 2009

The misty sunrise puts me in a Hallmark mood: Roses are brown,/ violets, long dead./ This coffee is bitter/ and goes straight to my head.

Dave Bonta May 20, 2009

A new birdsong at sunrise: “Pleased pleased pleased to MEETcha!” Likewise, I mutter, trying to place the name. Ah—chestnut-sided warbler.

Dave Bonta May 18, 2009

Half a degree above freezing at sunrise, and the sky is as clear as it gets. A towhee sings a backwards version of its song.

Dave Bonta April 26, 2009

Sunrise. A white moth and a white butterfly flit between the cherry blossoms, and at the edge of the woods, the shadblow is in full bloom.

Dave Bonta April 10, 2009

Twenty minutes after the feral cat disappeared under the porch, the squirrel still scolds. Rain is a soft patter of lead shot—or so I wish.

Dave Bonta March 13, 2009

Clear and cold at sunrise. The feral cat slinks across the springhouse meadow. Muffled sounds of a squirrel scolding from inside its drey.

Dave Bonta March 7, 2009

A warm morning—53°F. A Cooper’s hawk calls, a screech owl trills, but the squirrels go on rummaging through the leaf litter. I spy a gnat.

Dave Bonta February 24, 2009

Cloudless and cold at sunrise. Two titmice drone back and forth, like a pair of insurance agents at a party trying to out-bore each other.

Dave Bonta February 21, 2009

A section of latticework below the porch floor has fallen off, and though it kept nothing out, I feel strangely vulnerable. A red sunrise.

Dave Bonta February 19, 2009

Snowflakes make the wind visible. Who knew the yard was home to such complex currents? The anxious calls of a nuthatch on the far shore.